Hi!

My parents broke the mould, when they left their little home town in Denmark to move to East Africa. I suddenly saw, at a very tender age, that the world was far larger than I had ever imagined. I learned new languages, made friends from all over the world, and discovered myriads of cultures. Over time, I realised there are countless ways to live a life and no one has the right to dictate how you should live yours. Liberated from the narrow prison of my own culture, I specialised in embracing change and new opportunities. As a teenager, I was fortunate to attend international schools in Tanzania and Kenya. After high school, I wanted to sail around the world, so rather than go to university I trained for four years as a woodenshipwright. Armed with my newly acquired boat building skills, I lived and worked for a year on a schooner in Soper's Hole, Tortota, British Virgin Islands. Then, in 1990, I moved to the United Kingdom to study economies. After four years at Sussex and Warwick universities, I landed a two-year posting as advisor to the finance minister in Uganda. In 1996, I moved back to the UK to do a doctorate in economics at Oxford University. While studying, I worked as a freelance consultant before finding gainful employment in the World Bank's research department in Washington, D.C. When I got sick of foreign aid, I joined an investment bank and spent a few years as an emerging markets analyst in London and New York. This paved the way for a leap into asset management. Some sixteen years later I retired as Global Head of Research in a specialist emerging market asset management firm in London. The plan: do all the other stuff that I always wanted to do! I sold my flat in London and bought a 52 ft catamaran, which I named 'Twende' (Let's go! in Kiswahili) and sailed across the Atlantic. Then I spent a year travelling around the rest of the world before moving to Spain. I have so far been to 176 countries, but I plan to visit the rest in due time. This blog is about my experiences and my thoughts about the world as I see it. Enjoy!